1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing units which activate an application, operate according to a user input, and assist various user tasks, control methods for information processing units for performing an operation according to a user input operation, and computer programs, and more particularly, to an information processing unit which provides a work environment provided with a character input and a coordinate designation input, a control method for an information processing unit for performing an operation according to a user input operation, and a computer program.
More specifically, the present invention relates to information processing units structured by incorporating a coordinate input function into a character-input keyboard, control methods for information processing units for performing an operation according to a user input operation, and computer programs, and more particularly, to an information processing unit having an improved operability in cases when keyboard input operations and coordinate input operations are alternately performed, a control method for an information processing unit for performing an operation according to a user input operation, and a computer program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various personal computers (PCs) have been developed and made commercially available, such as desktop-type PCs, tower-type PCs, and notebook-type PCs, as recent technological innovation has been made. Among them, notebook-type PCs have been designed and manufactured for mobile environments. More specifically, they have been made compact and lightweight, so that the user can carry them outdoors or to any destinations and use them there.
Almost all computers provide a graphical user interface (GUI) function, which implements graphic-based user inputs. In a GUI environment, a desktop space and a great number of icons are prepared on the display screen. All resource objects, such as files, which are handled by the computer system can be represented by the corresponding icons on the desktop screen having the GUI. The user can directly apply an operation (such as clicking or drag-and-drop operation) to a displayed object, such as icons indicating programs, data, folders, and devices, on the screen by using a user input apparatus, such as a mouse, to operate the computer intuitively in an easy-to-understand manner.
To implement such a GUI environment, it is necessary for the computer to have a coordinate designation and input apparatus for specifying a desired location on the desktop screen, such as a mouse, in addition to a conventional user input apparatus, such as a keyboard.
For coordinate designation and input operations, a mouse is connected to desktop computers and other installation-type computers and used. In contrast, a in-keyboard-embedded-type device, such as a track pad (or a touch sensitive pad) is used instead of a mouse for notebook-type computers because of convenience of carrying the computers.
In such notebook-type computers, general mouse operations, such as clicking and dragging, can be implemented by combinations of operations on the track pad and operations on buttons disposed below the track pad.
In this case, however, since the buttons are apart from the keyboard, when the track pad is operated, fingers of the user are separated from their home positions (in usual QWERTY-type keyboards, the user usually places the forefinger of the left hand on the F key and the forefinger of the right hand on the J key as their home positions). Therefore, when typing on the keyboard and mouse operations are alternately performed, it is necessary for the user to look for the home positions visually after a mouse operation is finished, which is an operation problem.
FIG. 1 shows example arrangements of the fingers and hands of the user when the user operates a touch sensitive pad in a conventional manner. In FIG. 1, two cases are shown. In one case, the user uses the thumb of the right hand to operate the touch sensitive pad while using the thumb of the left hand to operate a mouse button, and in the other case, the user uses the forefinger of the right hand to operate the touch sensitive pad while using the thumb of the left hand to operate a mouse button. In either case, however, when the user operates the touch sensitive pad, fingers of the user are separated from their home positions, which means that the user feels inconvenient in performing both mouse operations and key inputs.
Various methods have been proposed to overcome this problem, such as rendering operations on the touch sensitive pad, including tapping, as button operations. In any of these methods, however, a reduction in operability caused by erroneous recognition occurs as a problem. In addition, moving a mouse while pressing a mouse button, which is a so-called “drag” operation, cannot be replaced only with recognition of tapping.